Chris Snieckus in his giant pumpkin boat Credit: Courtesy

Josh Hummel has been fascinated by the idea of steering a giant gourd down a waterway ever since he saw a pumpkin regatta in Burlington about a decade ago.

“I love adventure sports,” Hummel said. “But what I love even more than that is goofy adventure sports.”

Hummel also just happens to be a member of the Vermont Giant Pumpkin Growers Association. He and another member, Ethan Bruce Nelson, hatched a plan to make the vision a reality. They recruited fellow giant vegetable enthusiast Aaron Messier of Randolph to grow the plump pumpkin and Chris Snieckus to steer it. Through “genetic happenstance,” the 802-pound white pumpkin formed a triangle-shaped bottom — ideal for holding a passenger, Nelson said.

They decided they’d launch in Vergennes with the aim of traveling four miles down Otter Creek to Lake Champlain on October 18. Getting the pumpkin to the launching point was the hardest part, Nelson said.

“It was like moving a piano, but the piano was spherical and slippery,” he said.

Once on solid ground, the team sawed a hole in the pumpkin and scooped out the insides. Then Snieckus took off, with support people both on land and in kayaks and canoes. He stood upright for most of the journey, bracing against the wobbles and turns of the pumpkin boat, which had a tendency to spin in circles.

“That was an athletic accomplishment on Chris’ part,” Nelson said.

The group first attempted a pumpkin paddle in 2021, when they rode down the Otter Creek Gorge in New Haven. In 2022, they paddled down the Mad River.

Hummel and Nelson have dreams of beating the world record for longest journey in a pumpkin — 46 miles — next season. But it will require finding a body of water with enough velocity to carry the pumpkin, and a person willing to stand in it for many hours.

“It’s not about the pumpkin, though,” Nelson insisted. “It’s about getting together, having fun and being weird.”

The original print version of this article was headlined “Pumpkin Paddle”

This article appears in Oct 30 – Nov 5, 2024.

Rachel Hellman was a staff writer at Seven Days, covering Vermont’s small towns. She was also a corps member with Report for America, a national service program that places journalists into local newsrooms. Her story about transgender newcomers in Vermont...